The search for nitre, and the true nature of guano : being an account of a voyage to the south-west coast of Africa : also a description of the minerals found there, and of the guano islands in that part of the world / by T.E. Eden, Jr.
- Eden, T. E. (Thomas Edward)
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The search for nitre, and the true nature of guano : being an account of a voyage to the south-west coast of Africa : also a description of the minerals found there, and of the guano islands in that part of the world / by T.E. Eden, Jr. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![pliable; some of them when broken contained also crystals of ammoniacal salts, in the medullar]/ tube. There were no feathers in the lump ; but at Posses- sion Island, as I have before remarked, where there was much of this species of guano, it contained a large quantity of partly decomposed fur and hair, interspersed with small crystals in rhombic octohe- drons of microscomic salt, a compound of phos- phate of ammonia, and soda; these were slightly alkaline in their reaction. BIRD GUANO. The second variety, or bird guano, is of a lighter colour than the former, not so damp nor so heavy, mixed with feathers, and containing numerous * mummies,' of birds, if I may be allowed the ex- pression :* upon attempting to tear them open, I found it a difficult matter, but upon using the knife I discovered in their skulls, in their necks, abdo- minal and thoracic cavities, crystals of ammoniacal salts (chiefly biphosphate) ; their skins were stripped of feathers, and forcibly impressed upon me the idea of their having undergone some change similar to tanning. This was strengthened by the following circumstance; some young seals having been shot by the crews of the vessels which preceded us at the island, were thrown aside, (possibly in conse- * I have seen some of these mummies exposed in the shop windows in Liverpool; thousands of them have been thrown aside on the guano islands as useless- Some human bodies which were buried at Possession Island, and I believe also at Ichaboe, more than forty years since, were found in a similar mummified state, and taken to England as curiosities ; one of them I saw in a ship's hold at Possession Island, and it has since arrived in this country.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21050624_0107.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
